"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo opened a speech in Cairo on Thursday by referring to the Bible that he keeps in his small, wood-panelled office on the seventh floor of the State Department. “This trip is especially meaningful to me as an evangelical Christian,” he began, in a predominantly Muslim country that accounts for almost a quarter of the population in the Arab world. Only ten per cent of Egypt’s hundred million people are Christian. “I keep a Bible open on my desk to remind me of God and His Word, and The Truth.” (The State Department transcript provided this capitalization.)"

Pompeo went on to criticize the Obama administration's Middle East policies.

“In falsely seeing ourselves as a force for what ails the Middle East, we were timid about asserting ourselves when the times—and our partners—demanded it.” Under the Trump Administration, Pompeo claimed, America has “rediscovered its voice” and will now be “a force for good” in the Middle East. “The age of self-inflicted American shame is over, and so are the policies that produced so much unneeded suffering,” he said. “Now comes the real new beginning.”

I had seen excerpt's of Pompeo's speech on TV, but reading a fuller transcript just made me cringe. Pompeo is the Secretary of State and his voice supposedly would represent America's voice. Now he is sounding more like a Bible thumping missionary. What is it about these religious zealots that they have to preach their gospel with such tone deaf impunity in a Muslim country? Sheesh.

Yes, Schmidt the same feelings here. This fat ass guy is about the dumbest I've ever seen. Sure I always thought that he had too much fat in his brain. As I've said in another thread; it is unbelievable that these "evangelical idiots" get in those positions. Like I said, I never noticed such over in Europe; it must be an national "sickness" here. What an total disaster; when is this going to end? Sorry, but our present "foreign policy" stinks as rotten bananas in this banana republic.

Cairo, Cleveland..... It's all the same. White, male, Christian is all there should be. Perhaps a "Go fund me" account with the goal being: get 1 billion Muslims to switch to Christianity. Let Trump manage the funds. What could possibly go wrong ?

I guess I haven't paid as much attention to Pompeo and missed how strongly indoctrinated he was into his Christian evangelical beliefs. I knew he was a good practicing Christian, but some of his beliefs are really extreme. Michelle Goldberg wrote an article in Slate two years ago which discussed how Pompeo's faith has so consumed him:

"In June 2015, Rep. Mike Pompeo, a Kansas congressman, headlined a “God and Country Rally” at Wichita’s Summit Church. “To worship our lord and celebrate our nation at the same place is not only our right, it is our duty,” he began. Pompeo’s speech was a mishmash of domestic culture war callouts and dark warnings about the danger of radical Islam. He cited an inflammatory prayer that a pastor named the Rev. Joe Wright once delivered before the Kansas State Legislature: “America had worshipped other Gods and called it multiculturalism. We’d endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.” He lamented government efforts to “rip faith from our schools” and then segued immediately into a discussion of the jihadi threat: “This evil is all around us.” Pompeo concluded by describing politics as “a never-ending struggle … until the rapture.”"

More pointedly, Pompeo has a history of anti-Muslim sentiments. In 2013 after the Boston Marathon bombing, Pompeo expressed his sentiments of Muslims on the House floor: “When the most devastating terrorist attacks on America in the last 20 years come overwhelmingly from people of a single faith, and are performed in the name of that faith, a special obligation falls on those that are the leaders of that faith,” he said. Then he added: “The silence in the face of extremism coming from the best-funded Islamic advocacy organizations and many mosques across America is absolutely deafening. It casts doubt upon the commitment to peace by adherents of the Muslim faith.”

In Wikipedia it is reported that Pompeo serves as a local church deacon and teaches Sunday school. In 2014, Pompeo told a church group that Christians needed to "know that Jesus Christ as our savior is truly the only solution for our world". As mentioned above, in his 2015 talk at a church, Pompeo said that "politics is a never-ending struggle ... until the Rapture."

All this from the current Secretary of State. I don't trust any Christian who goes around preaching about the Rapture, but for one to occupy the highly influential Secretary of State position, it scares the crap out of me.

So his Cairo lecture on Christianity to the Egyptian Muslims makes more sense now. With that biased worldview of "never ending struggle until the rapture", he does not belong in that job.

I guess I haven't paid as much attention to Pompeo and missed how strongly indoctrinated he was into his Christian evangelical beliefs. I knew he was a good practicing Christian, but some of his beliefs are really extreme. Michelle Goldberg wrote an article in Slate two years ago which discussed how Pompeo's faith has so consumed him:

"In June 2015, Rep. Mike Pompeo, a Kansas congressman, headlined a “God and Country Rally” at Wichita’s Summit Church. “To worship our lord and celebrate our nation at the same place is not only our right, it is our duty,” he began. Pompeo’s speech was a mishmash of domestic culture war callouts and dark warnings about the danger of radical Islam. He cited an inflammatory prayer that a pastor named the Rev. Joe Wright once delivered before the Kansas State Legislature: “America had worshipped other Gods and called it multiculturalism. We’d endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.” He lamented government efforts to “rip faith from our schools” and then segued immediately into a discussion of the jihadi threat: “This evil is all around us.” Pompeo concluded by describing politics as “a never-ending struggle … until the rapture.”"

More pointedly, Pompeo has a history of anti-Muslim sentiments. In 2013 after the Boston Marathon bombing, Pompeo expressed his sentiments of Muslims on the House floor: “When the most devastating terrorist attacks on America in the last 20 years come overwhelmingly from people of a single faith, and are performed in the name of that faith, a special obligation falls on those that are the leaders of that faith,” he said. Then he added: “The silence in the face of extremism coming from the best-funded Islamic advocacy organizations and many mosques across America is absolutely deafening. It casts doubt upon the commitment to peace by adherents of the Muslim faith.”

In Wikipedia it is reported that Pompeo serves as a local church deacon and teaches Sunday school. In 2014, Pompeo told a church group that Christians needed to "know that Jesus Christ as our savior is truly the only solution for our world". As mentioned above, in his 2015 talk at a church, Pompeo said that "politics is a never-ending struggle ... until the Rapture."

All this from the current Secretary of State. I don't trust any Christian who goes around preaching about the Rapture, but for one to occupy the highly influential Secretary of State position, it scares the crap out of me.

So his Cairo lecture on Christianity to the Egyptian Muslims makes more sense now. With that biased worldview of "never ending struggle until the rapture", he does not belong in that job.

Yes Schmidt (excellent comments and research) As you know I worked all over the world, as you did. In my work I never talked about religion. I still remember working in Bangla Desh, doing the logistics and coordination to fix an crashed plane, I was in the middle of Muslims all the time. We had lots of fun with the locals and were invited all over the place. In the end we were blessed by the Prime Minister as if we were sent by Allah.

It seems that on this island that "religion" is so fanatically intertwined with the non-culture here that "common sense" no longer counts. Pitiful; Pompeo is an typical example of how not to represent the US in foreign countries. But yeah he fits exactly in the Trump "mafia" bunch.

If we get also an "Barr" as appointee, then the "picture" is complete to enhance the "incompetence" in this government.

The rest of the world shakes its head in unbelief of what this country has become, under this regime.

The article also points out that nearly all of the points in pompeo speech are in direct controdiction to Trump's actions and statements. It is almost like Pompeo is talking more as if someone else is president, not Trump. Nothing in the speech that tries to explain Trumps impulsive decisions, decisions that completely disconnected from to Pompeo's religious views. At best, his religious ranting are for making good Fox News and PTL clips; simply preaching those at home with a back drop of middle east terrorist.

My personal experience with evangelical people is that they feel compelled to convert every single person, and all other priorities are secondary. A great story is This America's Life's story of Reverend Carlton Pearson who was a rising star in the Evangelical world. He had a mega church with over 2000 people attending each Sunday morning, but was ultimately excommunicate from the church for, more-or-less, switching from a religious message of "Exclusion" to "Inclusion". Going from "God only accepts Christians" to "God accept everyone". Evangelicals considered his change in religious message to be radical heresy and he was officially labelled a "Heritic" and excommunicated for life.

My perception is that Evangelical Christians meet the definition of a cult. Trump as a con man has many traits that cult followers gravitate towards (Tell us what what we want to hear), thus is a natural fit for evangelicals on the national stage. Evangelicals are drawn to false prophets much like alcoholics are to alcohol. No matter how bad Trump might be, they want to believe he is going to make the US into a great White Evangelical nation, where judges make ruling base on the bible, not laws. Blacks return to being second class citizens who sit at the back of the bus, and DT is appointed to president for life.

What I find so mind boggling inconsistent is that Evangelical pride themselves on the purity of high moral standards, yet Trump is a living example of everything they value He lies, cons, and has cheated on all his wives. And above all he is clearly not religious, does not even pretend to be, and does not want to be.

Maybe Evangelicals see him as someone will be converted "very very soon, so soon you won't believe it" and when that happens, Trump will become one of them preaching 24x7 from the WH...... Well they shall be waiting a long long long time.

Multiple problems with Pompeo and other reactionary religionists. We will start with scripture claiming rulers/governments are instituted by God. If this is true then the founders were acting against God’s will. Second, I have never seen anywhere in scripture that says trumpeting your nation is God’s will or your duty. Third, the entire concept of God’s will, god’s plan etc can be summed up as Inshallah. This is merely the use of religion to cover generally violent politics.

No, we don’t need religionist politicians. In many instances the state must act in a manner incompatible with scripture. Enough of the prattle of these people.